NZ writer and
Illustrator Juliet Jacka,
illustrated by Phoebe Morris Frankie Potts and the Sparkplug Mysteries (Book
1) Puffin Books 2016 $11.99pb 97pp ISBN 978 0 1433 0918 5
Frankie Potts and the
Bikini Burglar (Book 2) Puffin Books 2016 $11.99pb 109pp ISBN 978 0 1433 0919 2 Themes: Circuses/ Dogs/Grandmothers/ Family
Life/ Read Alouds
Here
are the first two stories in what it is very much hoped will go on to be a long
series starring Number One Girl ‘Detective’, Frankie Potts and her canine
sidekick, Sparkplug. With her addiction for making lists and her
inquiring mind there is not much that is going to hold Frankie back once ‘a
case’ has her attention. The books are full of memorable characters - one of my favourites is Frankie’s
grandma, The Formidable Mildred – a
woman with a definite past. And what is it about Sparkplug who seems a very
unusual dog indeed? The books are easy to read and written in a style that is
going to say ‘yes’ to many seven to ten year olds (boys and girls) using language that never talks down to the reader, plus they
are liberally sprinkled with a highly original sense of humour and are just
asking to be read aloud. Phoebe Morris’s illustrations fit the stories
perfectly. Year
3 up/ Age 7 up
Talking to Juliet Jacka – Writer
Image: Dan Jacka
On Friday the first two books in Juliet’s new
series about the red headed girl detective, Frankie
Potts published by Penguin Random will be in all Bookshops.
I was going to visit Juliet (who used to live
next door to me before I moved to Waikanae) for this interview but neither of
us could find a mutually suitable time. So here we go with an email interview
that takes me back to the days when Around
the Bookshops was a hard copy (but soft covered) publication appearing
every three months and which always had an email interview. (I like my Blog
Days better!)
Hello Juliet- I read somewhere that you
were inspired to start writing by the Young Adult novels of Margaret Mahy. What
was it about her stories and the way she wrote them that called to you so
positively?
It’s true: I’m a Margaret
Mahy fanatic. First off, I love the language she uses —
how can you resist lines like “... the drift and the dream of it, the weave and
the wave of it, the fume and the foam of it...” (from The Man Whose Mother
was a Pirate, which I read to my girls the other night). Then, secondly,
I’m a sucker for fantasy stories with supernatural themes. The Tricksters and
The Catalogue of the Universe are still two of my favourite books, all
these years after I first read them (then re-read them and re-read them). I
also love her characters — like Harry, or Tycho — who undertake a journey of
discovery, fighting to find and recognise their own inner-worth and power,
despite it being obscured or overlooked at the beginning.
You have certainly lived around the
world – born in Wellington, university in Dunedin then off to Canada and
the UK. Now you are well established back in Wellington with your husband and
your two small daughters in a bright red (is it still bright red or has it
started to fade by now?) house alongside the Ngaio railway line. Lauris Edmond,
the poet, described Wellington as being the city of action, the world
headquarters of the verb Do you feel your surroundings
influence the way you write?
The house
is red, although gently peeling. A paint job may well be in the offing. And yes,
my surroundings very much influence the way I write. Physical landscapes and
people, both. It’s often quite an unconscious thing, though. As an example, my
husband was reading Frankie Potts for the first time the other night, and kept
stumbling across sayings or phrases that my young girls have invented that had
snuck their way into my books. I think I just sort of hoover things up
unconsciously and then they tiptoe their way into my writing.
Why
do you write for children Juliet? I am sure you still loved children’s
books as an adult before you had a family of your own but does having your own
children make you look at those books in a different way?
I think in
part because I remember how I felt reading Margaret Mahy’s books — transported,
enthralled and recognised, if that makes sense — and would love it if someday I
can write something that triggers a similar set of emotions for a young reader.
And having my own children has simply given me a handy excuse to re-read all
the books I loved back then. It’s great!
Tell
us a little about Frankie Potts and where she came from.
Frankie
burst into life thanks to an exercise I did for a workshop course in writing
for children at Victoria University. We had to string together a bunch of
unrelated words into some sort of story, and when I tried that out popped
Frankie Potts. Although, initially, she was a he — Arty Potts —
until things grew and changed after I fell in love with the character and
started turning the 500 word exercise into a fully fledged story.
As I think you
are planning a series I wonder how difficult it is going to be to find fresh
adventures and incidents for her to solve and be involved in?
I wrote the
first book — Frankie Potts and the Sparkplug Mysteries — as a standalone
story, not thinking too much about whether it would turn into a series or not.
But luckily Frankie’s the kind of character who finds mysteries wherever she
goes, so new ideas and stories are easy to dream up for her. Books three and
four will be on sale early next year: Frankie Potts and the Postcard Puzzle
and Frankie Potts and the Wicked Wolves. And I hope there’s more to come
after that. And an audience hungry to read them.
Image Barbara Murison
I wrote The
Night of the Perigee Moon when I was on maternity leave (luckily my daughter
was a good sleeper). Tilly, my heroine, is set to inherit a magical talent she
doesn’t really want on her
thirteenth birthday. It’s got a cast of quirky characters, including magical
aunts and uncles, talking cats and a colony of bats, and I had heaps of fun
writing it. It was even more fun when it won the Tom Fitzgibbon, because
the prize was getting my story published. That had me dancing around on the
tips of my toes for days. The Keeper of Spirit Hill also got
shortlisted, and at some point I’d like to revisit that story and see if I can
get it published, too. It’s a fantasy story about a girl called Willow, and it
was partly inspired by an atmospheric Wellington street called Holloway Road.
Lurking in a gully at the bottom of a valley, it’s the sort of narrow, winding,
dead-end street that begs you to write a story about it.
Have you always
been surrounded by books? I know you come from a very book-minded extended
family and I wonder if this love has also gone on to your own children?
Yes, it was
books galore in my house growing up. I’m lucky. My girls like reading too, and
they're super chuffed they get a dedication each in the front pages of Frankie
one and two.
How important was
the public library when you were a little girl? Do you remember using the
library system in Canada and the UK?
I went to
the library lots growing up, but I have to confess I didn’t spend much time in
them when I was living overseas in Canada and the UK. Although I did spend a
lot of time in bookstores. I worked in an independent bookstore in Canada, went
to Borders lots, and, when I was in London, often ended up in a bookshop near
Oxford Circus during my lunch break.
Apart from
finding the time to write (how DO you do it?) what is the biggest challenge in
your writing life? Where would you like to see yourself in the world of
children’s books say 10 years from now in 2026?
It’s magicking up time
when there isn’t any, at the moment. I have to get creative to fit writing in
around work and family life. By 2026, I’d like to have more magical writing
time, more Frankie books published, a new chapter series on the go, and written
— and had published, fingers crossed — a young adult novel in the vein of the Margaret
Mahy books I adored growing up. But, who knows? I might change my mind about
all that tomorrow when I sit down to write and a new character pops and
he/she/it leads me down an altogether different 10-year writing path ...
Would you now like to ask yourself
a question – and answer it?
What should
my character do next? How am I going to occupy the children tomorrow? Where is
my next coffee going to come from? How much My
Kitchen Rules is too much? But I don’t know the answers to any of these.
